


If There's a Reason, I'm Willing to Wait for It

by kikitheslayer



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: After Life, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:58:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6310342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikitheslayer/pseuds/kikitheslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan has a discussion with Aslan in his country.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If There's a Reason, I'm Willing to Wait for It

**Author's Note:**

> Because the world needs more Susan Pevensie character studies.

There was something wrong about being angry here, in this cool white landscape. It didn’t feel like anger should exist. In fact, it didn’t feel like anything should exist, except serenity, a woman sitting in a hard brown chair, and a Lion.

Serenity. The woman had been serene once. “Gentle,” the had called her, the sensible one. Gentle, but never weak. She could carry a bow as well as Peter could heft a sword, but usually by the time she was done speaking there was no call for weapons at all.

That had been a long time ago, in another world. And slightly less of a long time ago, that world had turned it’s back on Susan the Gentle. And now it was Susan the Gentle’s chance to return the favor. 

She was younger than she had been in decades. (Although still older than Peter had ever been.) She had calloused hands and laugh lines, but only that first streak of grey in her hair. She still had the decades full of memories.

They were memories of tears, yes, but they were more than that. Susan had never been just one thing. She had been more than a queen, more than a huntress. She had been a writer, working late nights on articles they wouldn’t publish. She had been a mother, putting her children’s needs above her own and being kind and stern by equal measure. She had been a person, waking at dawn, and putting on lipstick, and going to work, and crying in bathrooms, and making funeral arrangements, and going on dates, and crying in restaurants, and reapplying her lipstick.

So when this Lion looked at her and dared her to be the same devastated girl he had exiled all those years ago, she folded her hands in her lap, and kept on a queen’s smile, not giving anything away. He was still a God, but she was a grown-up. And he had always been a little bit afraid of grown-ups.

He waited for her to speak first.

She was silent. Instead, she thought back to the night her Lucy had wrapped her arms around her, and she had wrapped her arms around Aslan’s silky fur, and they had been carried across Narnia on velvet paws. She thought back to the rolling landscape, the wind in her hair, and the voice in the back of her mind telling her that she would never, ever want more than this.

In the end she had gotten more than that. She was more than that.

And the Lion wouldn’t understand that, if she told him, because the Lion was magic. To the Lion, her world was a copy, a cheap imitation, her life the blink of an eye. He was metaphors; she was only skin, bones, and nails.

But still, she had felt pain, and she had learned the kind of lessons you only learn from truly deep pain.

Things like:

* You can love someone and be disappointed in them.

* You can give to others without cutting pieces into yourself.

* She was strong, even in nylons, even in her impermanence.

He knew what it was to be magic. But she knew what it was to be real.

He was still waiting for her to speak.

She could have played the abandoned girl she had always sort of remained and demanded why he thought it okay to abandon her right when she needed him most. She could have been her siblings’ sister and her parents’ daughter and asked why he had thought it fair to take all of them at once. She could have been Susan the Gentle, and been silent, and only forgiven.

Instead, she was Susan Pevensie, and she asked, “You saw it all, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“And what did you think?”

“You have made me proud,” he said, “my dear Queen Susan.”

She nodded, and somehow, her arms found his neck, and her hands his fur, and she let herself weep, remembering that night in a good light once again. Her dear Aslan.

When she stood back up, she reapplied her lipstick. (She wondered if he was the reason she still had a tube in her pocket.)

Later, after she and Aslan had joined the others, Lucy took Susan’s hand, and said, “I am sorry it took so long! Was it terrible?” 

Susan nodded numbly, and didn’t have the heart to tell her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title loosely based on the song "Wait for It" from Hamilton, because that song is Susan Pevensie af


End file.
